Spoilers for a sidequest…
[Spoiler] I just finished the loyalty sidequest for Garrus on the Citadel. It was standard going up until you confront Sidonis. The paragon route requires you to place yourself in between Garrus and a man he’s trying to murder in cold blood, (no matter how much he may have deserved it), and to be quick on the paragon trigger.
That was awesome. I just felt the need to share that. :)[/Spoiler]
Thanks so very much.
Ho-ly shite. Incredible. A few thoughts, though. Big spoilers ahead.
[spoiler]1) The carry on from ME1 is brilliant - loads of new sidequests based on ME1 quests. Although for some reason Conrad Verner seemed to think I was a renegade to him, when I’m 100% sure I was paragon…
Slightly annoying how everyone now hates you for working with Cerberus. You’d think saving the galaxy would give me a bit of inherent trust. Ashley’s the worst; even if you say that you have no choice, you’re just using them, she’s still a massive bitch to you. Maybe that’s cos I rejected her ass for Liara. Oh, and the bleeding Council. Saving them has done nothing to remove their heads from their behinds. You can reapply for Spectre status, btw, but it doesn’t seem to affect anything.
Wild mass guessing - Anyone think The Illusive Man is some form of geth or Reaper agent (possibly a breakaway faction)? Basing this on his eyes, mostly, which are clearly mechanical. His ‘love of humanity’ might be similar in nature, if not in form, to the interest the Reapers and Collectors place on humanity. it would also explain why he wants the Collector base intact.
It’s amazing how invested you can get with the characters. I chuckled when I found out that Archangel was a turian sniper…heh. Then panicked when my main man Garrus nearly got himself killed on Omega and the Collector base. Was flying by the seat of my pants on the last mission.
The only person in my run who got themselves killed in the Collector base was Miranda, who I never particularly liked. I’d done all the loyalty missions, but my charm score wasn’t high enough for a peaceful resolution to her spat with Jack (who seemed to think I was coming onto her, bleugh, and would only tell me to “Fuck off!” when I made it clear that I’d rather shag Grunt). Charm score still wasn’t high enough to reconcile her, so she ended up in a bodybag. Remember girls - catfights can kill.[/spoiler]
When did she die? Her death was probably due to your choice of characters for the various missions rather than due to the catfight.
Right at the end of the last mission. Saw her body just as the gang were returning to the Normandy. Didn’t pick her for any crucial duties -chose Legion for the pipes, Jacob for the second squad (then to lead the civvies back), Samara for biotic barrier and my main man Garrus to replace Jacob on the second squad. As a result of the catfight she was the only member of the crew with ‘normal’ loyalty; it went back down from ‘loyal’ (I’d done the mission with her sis). Can’t think of any other reason she’d be costa del blowfly other than that, you can finish the game with all squaddies alive.
I finished my first play through at about 30 hours. Spoilers ahoy!
[SPOILER]If you want to survive the mission, make sure you upgrade the Normandy. Particularly the weapons, armor, and thrusters. They will save your ass before you even land on the collector base.
Getting your team to survive: Get their loyalty. They’re will still apparently be random deaths, but I had Tali and the Justicar die. Tali caught a rocket to the face after I had her crawl through the Collector Base’s air ducts. The Justicar died holding off the Collector’s while I battled the Reaper-Human Hybrid.
Now Jack dying really pissed me off. I spent all game looking after her, and working on making her well, less crazy. See was part of my A-team, with Zaheed.
So when time came to split up again, and I needed a Biotic to hold off the Collector Swarm, I chose Miranda. I figured Zaheed and Jack were my two badasses, and I needed them to fight off the Collectors while Miranda did her thing.
It didn’t work, the Collector’s carried poor Jack away right right before we got to safety.
I’m pretty sure you always lose someone at that point, since there’s no reselect for your squad right before the big battle.
Oh… and there’s an awful lot of Reapers coming. I don’t know if saving the Base was the right move, but I hope it helps kill Reapers (same logic I’ve used to help to Krogan reunite and sparing the Ranchi in the first game).[/SPOILER]
[spoiler]Seeing the Collector ship destroyed by tech scavenged off Sovvie was absolutely delicious, and a satisfying vengeance for the loss of the SR-1…I wouldn’t dream of going in there without the upgrades (I upgraded weapons, armour and shields - how do you upgrade thrusters? This would explain why the Normandy had to land rather urgently on me…although it got up and running again, so no big loss).
On your squaddies; there’s an achievement for bringing them all home, so there is some way to do it.
I took Garrus and Tali at first, then Grunt and Thane for the biotic shield bit (I took Samara, figuring that she was my strongest and most stable biotic), then back to G&T. None of them bit it, although Garrus gave me another fright at the end.
That end cinematic was incredible. Seems like the Reapers have completely abandoned their plans regarding The Citadel and are just embarking on an all-out attack. The one good thing is that it will vindicate Shep and make the Council look like even bigger idiots.
I left the station but wonder if destroying it might have been the better idea, if it’s reclaimed then all our effort will have been for naught. I wiped out the Rachni; the last thing we need in a war with Reapers is a bunch of easily indoctrinated, fast breeding insects against us.
Wonder what they want with humans? Sovereign, or rather Nazara, is a tentacly nightmare…as were the Protheans. Perhaps they’re looking for new design ideas from organics, then aiming to turn humans into the new Collectors? One of the Harbinger taunts is “We are your genetic destiny”, suggesting this.
[/spoiler]
Ah, okay. I didn’t realized that the fight resulted in your losing loyalty.
[spoiler]Nope, you can save them all.
IIRC, you have to make the following choices (and have everyone loyal):
Ducts: Legion/Tali
2nd Team: Jacob/Garrus
Biotic Shield: Samara/Jack
Escort: Jacob/Garrus
[/spoiler]
I like spoiler boxes.
[SPOILER] You can put Grunt in charge of the escort. He made it there just fine.
I was talking to my part timer about the game. He used Jack for the biotic shield. You’re right, Miranda is not quite strong enough. If the whole biotic shield team survives to the climatic battle, can you use all 3 squad members?
The Rachni can be indoctrinated, I think. The conversation you have with the Asari with a message from the Queen seems to imply it at least. I didn’t think about that at the time in ME1, but if certain hives can resist it all the better. Same thing with the Geth apparently, but I didn’t get to explore Legion’s back story since I wanted to save my crew ASAP.
Garrus gave me the same scare. It was actually a tough call to put him on there, since he was part of my A team in the first game (Ash/Garrus). I didn’t use him much in this one, but I still like the guy.
One thing that is clear to me, as much as a Humanist I am, we need all the races working together. The Reapers are that big of threat, and well as long as we win and Humanity is on top… good for us 
I think the Reapers want humans because they’re beginning to fear us. Speech options in both games for the Rah-Rah speech at the climatic give you the option to imply it. Humanity has defeated Sovereign, and developed tech to defeat their servants. I’m beginning to think that Humanity was tampered with by the Protheans. The Hanar already believe that they were, so I don’t think it’s too hard to believe. In such a short time Humans have done so much, it’s hard to believe we’re not special.
For the record, if Humanity as a whole needs to sacrifice themselves to stop the Reapers on the behalf of the rest of the Galaxy, well… it’d be worth it. I’d want the Salarians to run thing afterwards though, those guys crack me up.[/SPOILER]
Nope, when I used Samara she sodded off at the end with the others, so I fought the Terminator’s big brother with Tali and the G-man.
The “sour yellow note”, yep. I still gave her an acid bath, though. Legion’s backstory is interesting re the chances of indoctrination and ‘heretics’, but I think it’s more an exploited schism than pure indoctrination - in ME1 Saren says the geth revere Sovvie as a god, the pinacle of artificial existence, and that’s why they follow it. But the reaction of Sovereign was to be insulted at the “pitiful devotions the geth hurl at it”, which doesn’t sound like Reaper SOP.
Also why I use Tali a lot, and didn’t send her up the tubes. Speaking of which, anyone feel a bit robbed by the Tali romance? My Shep is faithful to Liara (I though the pic on the desk at the end was a nice touch), but reloaded out of curiosity. She takes her mask off…with her back to camera! Gah!
In the first game you can see that the Protheans took a definite interest in humans, possibly lifting them evolutionarily (a belief the hanar hold about themselves). If you use the trinket the asari consort gives you on a uncharted world ruin you get a description of a Prothean orb observing cro-magnons. Then there’s leaving the cache on Mars for us to find.
Tagriffic, I know.
Wow, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTD3NKOm7VE Is a bit ridiculous. So since the xbox 360 version fo the game takes forever to load, bio deicded to artifically extend the PC’s loading times with long load movies. You can aleviate this if you want by following instrucitons linked to in the page. Damn consoles.
Also thanks for keeping the spoilers in spoilers tags guys. I can’t wait to participate in end game discussion. I still have a long ways to go it seems however. Which is good!
Is it worth to pay 10 euros more for the Deluxe edition?
No one left behind! Hell yeah.[spoiler]First time I tried Garrus (fire team) Legion (Hack) followed by Samara (biotic) Jacob (2nd Team) Zaeed (escort). In this playthrough Mordin died off camera. Tried it again everything the same only Garrus 2nd team and Mordin Escort. This time nobody died. I think the escort mission is a free pass to live.
Everyone loyal though I was missing a few upgrades I didn’t seem to have the cash for.[/spoiler]I was really annoyed to be lvl 29 when I started the final mission. I had imported a lvl 60 and did every quest I could find. But apparently it gives you little bits of experience during the final mission so I hit 30 first playthrough. Which is good news for anyone looking for that achievement and is worried.
Well the armor will save you some cash in game as it’s pretty much as good as anything else so you don’t have to waste credits buying armor pieces at the store (only you can’t mix and match parts for different buffs and if you don’t like the look you can’t change that either). The gun is pretty good as well. The artbook doesn’t seem too impressive and is filled with spoilers if that bothers you. I didn’t read the comic.
It’s really a personal call. I’d say the in game items are worth about 2 pounds if the other stuff makes up the difference for you go for it.
I always knew there was a reason I love EDI so much.
I’m trying to figure out if I can somehow modify dirt 2 in the same way. The fucking console loading animation retardation is infuriating.
One of my friends just got an SSD, which means he can probably load a dirt 2 map in roughly half a second, which means now he can have the game fully loaded and ready to go in the first half of the first second, but then have to wait a good 25-30 seconds while the computer sits idle for the retarded xbox load animation to complete.
I think they made good use out of their voice actors in general, though my favorite was Kal’Reegar, played by Adam Baldwin, addressing me as ‘Shepherd’.
At the end [spoiler]some of the deaths seem to be random. I did everything exactly the same (although this time tried my damndest to gain paragon points to gain loyalty back off Miranda either during the catfight or after it, but the silly bitch was having none of it. Paragon bar nearly full, no option to reconcile. Goddammit). Only this time, Mordin bought the farm too.
Oh well, at least this time I have Kelly’s fine ass to give me solice.
Thinking of doing the bad ending, but I’m not sure I could bring myself to it…[/spoiler]
Just completed it, with No-one Left Behind - Woo!
[spoiler] I think they’re sort of Borg-like - the Protheans were the Big Thing at the time they last came around, and that’s who they took as servants. This time it’s humans who are beating them, and doing arguably a better job than the Protheans did with more limited resources. Either in terms of bettering their resources, or perhaps simply an idea of bettering themselves, humans would seem to be the obvious pick.
Of course, this would suggest that the form the reapers have now is presumably that of a former species that they were impressed by.
Here’s a question - did the little scene with the Prothean/Collector General at the end there imply that “Harbinger” is just another Reaper like Sovereign, who controlled the General most of the time? [/spoiler]
I have to say, the thing i’m most impressed with is the life to the thing. I felt a little confined (especially in comparison with ME1) but the “mission” format grew on me. And that people you’re talking to do move around, make lots of different gestures, and generally emote a bit more physically was really good. And I definetly felt that the Paragon/Renegade concept that you could do a bit of both was considerably more well-done in this game.
